


Mergeworld

by wolframdioxide



Series: Mergeworld [1]
Category: Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Pacific Rim (2013), Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mosaic, Weirdness, improvised, in which impossible stuff happens, megacrossover, stuff happens over time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolframdioxide/pseuds/wolframdioxide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The President said, "Whichever one of you put drugs in my coffee this morning, it's time to 'fess up." Behind him, the purple unicorn looked concerned.<br/>Today was going to be a bizarre day.</p><p>NOTE: Intend to re-write in the near future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Day

**Author's Note:**

> Our country is stranger than it was a year ago.  
> (Or even a few hours ago.)

_The skies above Washington were navy-blue, contrails puffing in grey streaks from side to side. A glint of silver-_

**_Flash._ **

**_Thunder._ **

**Welcome.**

* * *

Jed Bartlet sat in the Oval Office, reading rapidly through a piece of legislation. The _Vehicular Manufacturing Standards Act_ , it was called, even if it was really the  _Let's Deregulate Vehicle Manufacturing Act,_  what with a Republican Congress. He flipped through the bill, contemplating each clause with an expression of distaste, and then folded it up. He had put it in his pocket by the time-

The skies behind him flashed with actinic white light, and thunder crashed. The President stood up, and the Secret Service rushed in. 

"Sir, we have to get you downstairs."

Bartlet bit off a sarcastic remark and said, "Of course. A bomb?"

Ron Butterfield replied, "We don't know." But both of them knew, or at least thought they knew, the answer to be  _yes_. 

(They were wrong.)

* * *

The Situation Room was abuzz with activity. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was looking at a projected map of the DC area, with red lines stretching around the Federal Triangle and across the Potomac. The President sat down at one of the chairs, next to an empty one marked with "Leo McGarry". 

"Where's Leo?"

One of the advisors along the table replies, "He's still upstairs. We're getting him."

"Alright, then. What happened?"

Fitzwallace replies with, "A few minutes ago, as you know, a large flash of light and a loud noise occurred. At the same time, some sort of - this is a verbatim description - force field, impenetrable and invisible, came down around us.

Leo McGarry entered. "A  _force field_? If anyone had that kind of technology, wouldn't we have  _heard_ about it by now?", he said, with a mixture of indignance and confusion. 

"One would think so," said the President, "but apparently not."

"Intelligence money well spent. Can anything get in or out?"

A bespectacled analyst rushed in with a stack of papers. (Not many people know that the White House alone burns through about a tree's worth of paper every day, and that's only the 3% that's not recycled. Based on that, the President calculated, the government would grind to a halt from that alone within the week.) Another advisor read, off the top of the sheaf, "Light, radio signals, some air, and some water. We're not in any danger of dying of that, at least."

"Just starvation and rioting," grumbled the President. "Alright. Have the Capitol Police... Well, just make sure the Capitol Police keep doing their jobs. See if we can't get this force-field down. I'm going to go up to the Residence."

As they exited the Situation Room, Leo said, "You seem to be taking this well."

The president responded, "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Oh, you know, force field, probably an attack, we might all die. This is the sort of situation where you can freak out."

"We might  _not_ all die. Besides, you're not freaking out."

"It doesn't seem real yet to me. It'll probably hit me around midnight."

(It did.)

* * *

"DONNA!"

Donna Moss froze in mid-stride, turning toward Josh's office. "I thought you were gone for the night."

"I was in a meeting with some labor representatives. What the hell is going on?"

"With the force field?" 

Josh slumped over and straightened up again. "No, with the Xiamen conference.  _Yes,_ with the force field!" _  
_

"If I knew about the force field, I wouldn't be here right now."

"Okay."

"You know where I'd be?"

The question was clearly rhetorical, but Josh couldn't help answering. "Where?"

"In the Situation Room, telling the President and Leo about the force field."

"So, if I ask them, they can tell me?"

"I doubt it, but knock yourself out. I'm going home for the night." Donna walked out of Josh's office, picking her coat up off of the rack.

Remembering something, Josh spoke. "Wait."

Donna froze again, one arm in her coat. "What?"

"Your apartment is in Adams-Morgan, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

He began to speak, but was interrupted. Leo walked by them and said, "Josh, the President wants you in his office."

Josh exhaled. "I... Okay. Leo?"

"Yes?"

"Can you see if Adams-Morgan made it through?"

Leo paused. "Okay. I'll have it on your desk in the morning."

"It's for Donna."

He paused again, and longer. "Well, if it didn't, she'll find out."

"Okay." Behind him, Donna resumed leaving.

(It didn't.)

* * *

The meeting was dragging on into the night when Toby observed that they were no closer to knowing about the force field than when the meeting had started. Sam subsequently commented that the best they could do was to hope it was gone by the morning.

(It wasn't.)

* * *

Josh had entered his apartment and was currently urinating when he heard a series of sharp knocks on his door. He hollered, "Who is it?!" The knocker yelled back, "Donna!"

He zipped up, walked to the door, and opened it. "So, Adams-Morgan-"

"Gone," said Donna. "Can I stay here for the night?"

Josh walked to the couch, moving various papers and books off of it. "Sure."

Both were, in at least some small part of their minds, hoping that the other would ask to go, or invite the other to go, into the bedroom.

(Neither did.)

* * *

Abbey Bartlet looked out northward, from the third floor of the White House. A bit over a mile away, Capitol Police was closing off the street where it ran through the barrier.  She hoped, at least, that the next day would be less weird.

(It wouldn't be.)


	2. The Dawn of a New Age

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the summary begins to be revealed.

_Ring around the city, here it comes, **this** ditty:_

_Ashes,_

_Ashes,_

**_All_ **

**_Fall_ **

_**Down!**_

* * *

Declassified documents would show that, at 0423 EST, what appeared to be a column of lightning appeared, striking at the zenith of the dome. It lasted there for seven seconds before the following happened:

First, the dome resounded and resonated with a tone reminiscent of a pipe organ the size of the Washington Monument.

Next, cracks, backlit and blue-white, spread from the top down. Like a planetarium hit by an earthquake. Capitol Police along the edges reported seeing glimpses of a landscape outside, before-

> **"BANG!"**

Like a firecracker with the yield of Little Boy.

* * *

 

After that, the dome pops open, like a blooming flower time-lapsed into a fraction of a second, and the shards of dome burst out into the night sky. 

The US Naval Observatory would confirm that the sky above Washington matched no location on Earth, and, in fact, anywhere within a kiloparsec of Earth, but Jed Bartlet didn't need to be told that.

As he looked out over a magnificent vista; the Truman Balcony of the White House, facing southward toward the Potomac; he saw the sky above him and mentally compared it to the skies of his childhood in New Hampshire.

Those didn't seem to have as many stars as this one, and he couldn't pick out any constellations.

And it didn't seem to be as bright in the nighttime as the day.

* * *

According to the watch on the wrist of Joshua Lyman, the time was 6:30. According to the melotonin in the circadian rhythm of the same, it was nearer 3:30. And the sky outside his window could not belong to Washington, but indicated that it was deep into nighttime. 

He shrugged, sat up, dressed, combed his hair, and made to leave.

It was then that he remembered Donna, on his couch.

Or at least she  _had_ been on his couch: her current location was on the floor, in a swirl of blankets, wedged between the legs of the couch and the coffee table, with a throw pillow perched perfectly on her cheek and a trail of drool soaking into his carpet.

He kneeled down, taking care to avoid being drooled on, and returned the pillow to the couch. Following that, he said "Donna?", and poked her shoulder.

A loud noise erupted. Donna began struggling and grunting, in a state of semi-consciousness. She began returning to consciousness when the drool hit her hand.

"Josh?"

He rolled up his sleeve and held out his hand. She took it, after a few abortive attempts, and he helped her to her feet.

After that, Josh attempted to operate his coffee-maker and ended up creating a cup of hot water with a mass of brown sludge at the bottom. Donna demonstrated, and they sat, their feet in Donna's warm blankets, as she teased him about his inability to operate coffeemakers and he teased her about drooling onto his carpet. They ended up going back to the White House together, walking into the car arm-in-arm.

At the White House, the mood was  _nervous_. The room was in a state somewhere between a sinking battleship and one which may or may not be under attack. Information trickled out of the meetings and expanded, _exploded_ , out of peoples' minds and/or asses. A few staffers asked whether or not it was true that they had gone back in time.

Josh bit back a sarcastic remark -  _"a secret plan to fight inflation"_ ran through his mind - and said, "Not to my knowledge."

He sat down at his desk, as a whooshing noise passed overhead-

* * *

 

Rainbow Dash flew across the skies, aiming for the black dome in the distance.  _If I can't be a Wonderbolt,_ she thought (the Wonderbolts had been left behind, outside the barrier), _this seems interesting, at least._ She banked, bearing down on the dome-

Lightning struck. She stopped in mid-air, watching the dome come down, before it burst open. She saw a massive shard of force-field before-


	3. In The Land Of The Ponies

_The skies above Ponyville were the colour of a television with the screen turned off. Stars marked up on the celestial firmament like holes in cardboard..._

_**And the walls came down.** _

_**And they cried out, "no hiding place", but nobody could hear them.** _

* * *

 

Twilight Sparkle sat in her library, amidst a pile of books. "No... No... NO! This is  _impossible!_ "

She flung the latest book away, and watched it arc in a parabolic trajectory, vainly hoping for some kind of epiphany. None came, but she was focused enough on the work at hand, briefly dropping out of focus and into a "flow state", such as it were, where the world melted away into hard mathematics, the backbone of all true knowledge-

Thus, she completely failed to notice the open door, and the pony who, having been in the process of entering, was hit in the face with a copy of Brightwind's _Elements of Magic._ That pony yelled, "Twilight Sparkle!"

That got her attention, sure enough.

The rainbow-maned pony with a book falling off of her face continued with, "You have been shut in this library for a  _week!_ Are you any closer to getting us out of this?" Rainbow Dash paused, waiting for a reply. 

"Well, the bubble does seem to be weakening somewhat-"

"So that's a no, then? Alright. You're coming with me."

The purple pony stammered out, after a few seconds of furious mental argument, "W-Where?"

Rainbow Dash smiled- this, at least, indicated that she wasn't going to  _actively_ avoid going. "Pinkie Pie's party. To keep our spirits up, y'know?"

She weighed the relative benefits of avoiding a social situation versus making Pinkie happy. The sides were fairly balanced, before her mental image of Celestia looked sternly at her. She blinked, then continued on her way.

* * *

_The Next Day:_

"Sir, Lassiter Airport radar just detected a fast-moving UFO, making a beeline for us." Jed Bartlet sighed, stared out of the window, and leaned back. 

Another analyst said, "It seems to mostly be organic - or, at least, non-metallic - and is moving at subsonic speed. Only one, small, metallic part."

Jed Bartlet sat back, and spoke. "Wait to see what it does."

That would prove to be a wise choice.

* * *

_The Previous Day:_

Twilight Sparkle didn't know, exactly, _how_ Pinkie Pie had put streamers on the dome itself, but she suspected tape. The alternative was... Actually, Twilight couldn't actually think of any alternatives. It was just too obvious. 

She attempted to not draw attention, but that was, she reflected, doomed from the start. "You made it? You made it! I was worried you wouldn't show up because you hadn't heard about it or maybe you had but couldn't come for some reason but you're here now so I guess you can't not have shown up already so here you are! What do you think of the streamers I had them taped onto the dome forcefield thing but I have a feeling they'll be coming down soon!"

(To her dying day, Twilight Sparkle insisted that what happened next was a coincidence. Oddly enough, she was absolutely correct.)

A loud organ noise.

**Crack.**

**Bang.**

"I told you!"

* * *

_The Next Day:_

A rainbow-coloured pony dropped out of the sky and landed, though not before doing a couple of aerial tricks. She touched down on the National Mall, between the Smithsonian Castle and the Museum of Natural History. She walked toward a confused-looking tourist with a camera and said, "Take me to your leader."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've just started MLP, so apologies for any out-of-character-ness.


	4. Two Worlds Collide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting the new neighbors.

The rainbow pony was given directions.

"Go that way," he said, pointing at the Washington Monument, "And then turn right, and keep going until you reach the White House." Dash nodded, thanked him, and accelerated, making a hairpin turn around the obelisk, and launching herself toward the building.

She flew over the fence, then buzzed a fountain, reworking her angle to a more horizontal one. Observers saw a bluish blur barrel over the barricades and blow boreal-ward, busting into the building that was the base and business-place of Bartlet. (Enough with the alliteration.)

* * *

 

Dash entered through the South Portico and landed, face-first, in the Diplomatic Reception Room. She lifted her head to find the Secret Service, guns drawn, surrounding her.

"Is that any way to treat a guest?", Bartlet asked rhetorically. The agents lowered their weapons and the President walked into the center, reaching an arm out to shake her hand. "No, wait, you don't have those. Sorry. Well, let me help you up." Dash lifted onto her hooves and trotted forward. "My name is Rainbow Dash, Royal Scout of the Principality of Equestria. Are you the leader of here?"

"Yes."

"Great! Princess Celestia requested me to bring you to Canterlot Palace. I'll carry you, if you want me to."

Bartlet said, "While that would, certainly, be interesting, I doubt my security would allow that." She looked somewhat put out at that. "However, if you could lead the way, we would be happy to follow." She smiled at that.

"Got it! I'll make sure you're never-ever lost!" 

The President turned to Leo, and asked, "How long until we can get Marine One operational?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Excellent."

The President walked away, approaching the rainbow-colored pony. She asked, "So, what's your name? The Princess told me to find it out."

"My name's Josiah Bartlet, but you can call me Jed."

"Jed? No offense, but neither of those sound like real names."

"It doesn't?"

"Jed's not a word."

"No, it isn't. What's your name?"

"Rainbow Dash."

"Now imagine how I'm feeling."

"I'm trying. Today _has_ been a day of very low probability."

The President simply nodded.

* * *

Shining Armor stood, watching the skies outside Canterlot. It had been hours since Rainbow Dash had departed, and while the Royal Princesses and his sister, along with the Chief Party Planner, were planning for the arrival of whoever was out there, he was stuck doing sentry duty.

At least the landscape looked nice. It was grassland, but with big crags of rock bursting out of it, and clumps of forest in the distance. One tall pyramidal mountain was nearby, veins and bands of different types of rock streaking through it, and some kind of whirring noise coming from behind it-

Wait.

He sent off a quick message -  _Odd noise behind mountain. Going to investigate. Am I covered?_  - and received a reply -  _Affirmative._ He teleported toward the base of the mountain to see this:

Rainbow Dash was at the front of a procession of a half-dozen blocky things with spinning blades. She said something Shining Armor couldn't make out, then descended, executing a rapid maneuver which ended in her hovering in front of him.

She said, "Those things up there are carrying the human leader people."

He said nothing, staring up at the gravity-defying sight of a wingless aircraft. She flew back up, leading the objects toward Canterlot.

With finality, he said, "What."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back.


	5. Meanwhile, On The Other Side Of The World... (Interlude, Pt. 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A selection of events from other universes, in this one. (Because I still need to finish Season One of My Little Pony.)

The Titan bent down to grab another victim, out of the streets of Shiganshina-

And stopped. A dome shut off behind it. It had (obviously) never seen anything like it, and it had no idea what the hell was going on.

The Titan had a massively simple brain - almost all of it was dedicated to autonomic processes, motor control, and sensory processing.  It managed to have enough space and energy left over to classify everything it saw into three categories: food, mate, or threat. 

It could not classify the dome.

A Titan is not an especially clever creature, and it did not hedge its bets. It ignored the dome, not even noticing as the dome disappeared behind it.

That happened to doom it.

* * *

It just so happened that the Hong Kong Shatterdome was located near Shiganshina. Whether that was intentional or accidental on the part of whatever had brought them there, that would have immediate repercussions.

The Jaeger _Striker Eureka_ lumbered out, fully repaired and operational, ready for combat. It took a few minutes for it to move across the terrain.

And when it did...

* * *

 

BANG was the sound of a missile felling a Titan. The Titan collapsed forward, and its body crashed into a building on the way.

Across the way, Eren Jaeger thought to himself,  _I want to join them._

* * *

* * *

I see in  _Lunaya Pravda_ news of strange happening on Luna, bright wall blocking comms and transport between Luna and Earth. But did not need to see in  _Pravda,_ can see with own eyes. Light in heavens - blocks off Authority orders, sure, but also stops shipments from Earth. Is good now? Yes, but dangerous later.

Mike says no huhu. Doubt that, but believe him.

Phone rings. I answer, hear Mike's voice on other end. "Mike," I say, "New news?"

"Man, the barrier is being odd. Starting to come down, maybe. And something came through, crashed outside L-City. I'm going to have to send you and yours in."

So was, hour later, in p-suit on surface, looking at crater. And saw motion at bottom. As watched, saw large winged unicorn begin to crawl out. Minutes later, in full atmo, heard Old Earth English: "Who art thou?"

 


End file.
